OR DIE TRYING: THE STORY OF CHO CHANG

By monkeymouse

NB: JKRowling built the Potterverse; I'm just redecorating one of the rooms.

Rated: PG-13

Spoilers: Everything

xxx

4. Valuable Lessons

Cho was up early; all the girls were, too excited to sleep too long. Once she was dressed, Cho thought briefly about putting Eunice Murray in the bookcase in the corridor, but decided instead on a copy of the Analects of Confucius. She filled out the card, placed it inside the front cover and went down to breakfast, leaving the book in the case.

However, beginning at the tapestry, the First-Years spent a giddy twenty minutes trying to back-track themselves from last night. The castle seemed to refuse to let them get back to the Great Hall. Finally, they bumped into a very short professor with thick muttonchop whiskers and a twinkle in his eye.

"Of course I'll help you find your way," he gushed happily. "Are any of you Ravenclaw, by chance?"

"We all are," Letitia Groondie (Pywacket's owner) replied; "First-Year."

"Excellent! I'm Professor Flitwick, and I'm the Head of Ravenclaw House. I also teach Charms, so I'll be seeing you later today for your first lesson."

He was a cheery and enthusiastic little man who never stopped talking all the time he was leading the students through the halls of Hogwarts. He was always giving the history of some painting or the story behind some ghost. Cho hoped that all the teachers would be like him, but she had a feeling that they wouldn't be.

Her feelings were right. For example, there was the Potions master, Severus Snape. That would be her first class on her first day as a Hogwarts student: Potions. She didn't think it would be so difficult. She'd read through the text, brought a cauldron, and tried to refresh her memory of some of the plants her parents sold in Diagon Alley before the train left. Of course, they sold to Chinese wizards and witches, and those who were interested in that side of magic. Still, this first course didn't look too bad.

The classroom put her off, at first. It was, quite simply, a dungeon cell. The dozen Ravenclaw First-Years were crammed into a not-too-large room with another dozen students. There were First-Year Hufflepuffs, and Potions was to be a double class.

At the stroke of the hour, the teacher strode briskly into the classroom as if he were late. His robes flowed behind him, and it would have made an impressive picture, if not for his sallow skin, sharp nose, and hair which hung straight, stringy and oily down over his collar.

He immediately started speaking as if the class was waiting to hear from him. "This course is not about wands, spells or the more esoteric forms of magic. It is simple, and yet subtle at the same time. You will learn, before your days at Hogwarts are over, about the properties, good or ill, inherent in many species of plant life, minerals, animals and insects. Or, rather, I will teach, and you will try to learn." He picked up a sprig of a plant. "Can anyone tell me the properties of horsetail?"

Cho was on her feet and talking even before she realized it. "That plant is one we've known about in China for thousands of years; we call it ma huang. It's used to promote breathing." So she went, on and on about the plant, giving everything she could remember from what she'd learned at the shoppe: the whole history of it, what it's used for, people who should and shouldn't take it. She expected Snape to congratulate her on being so knowledgeable. "Excellent answer!" he would declare; "full marks to Miss Chang!"

Instead, Snape just looked at her, very coldly, and said, "Miss Chang, students of Ravenclaw House have a reputation for being clever-usually too clever for their own good. You seem to be fitting neatly into that tradition." And he turned away.

What was that all about? Cho wondered. Again, without thinking, she blurted out: "Why did you ask the question if you didn't want the answer?"

The others in the classroom cringed. Snape spun back around, clearly angry at Cho. "Ten points from Ravenclaw for insolence, and ten points from Ravenclaw for insubordination. If you don't know how to behave in a classroom, maybe you shouldn't be here at all."

Cho didn't hear anything after that. She sat in a daze, moving sometimes when Jan prompted her to add something or other to the cauldron. She had no idea what the ingredients were, or what it would all turn into.

Her only thoughts were: "I cost us twenty points! I wanted to do well, and I cost Ravenclaw twenty points! Maybe he's right; maybe I'm not ready for all this yet."

The second the class was dismissed, Cho was out the door. She ran all the way back to Ravenclaw before she realized that she didn't remember the password. Just at that moment, though, an older boy ran out from under the tapestry. Cho ducked in before it closed, ran down the stairs and slammed her hand on her book. She ran up to the dormitory room, slammed the door shut and started piling furniture up against the door-anything she could move: writing desks, trunks, washstands.

There came a pounding at the door. "What's going on in there? Miss Chang?" It was Nita the Prefect.

Now that she had a chance to size up the situation, Cho saw that she was just making things even worse, but in her state of mind she didn't know how to undo what had happened. She just wanted to disappear off the face of the earth. "Leave me alone!" she shouted tearfully, then threw herself onto her bed, sobbing into the pillow.

"Hullo, Cho."

Cho looked up to see who was speaking. Penny Clearwater had just stepped in through the open window. Setting her broom down on the floor, she then walked over and sat down next to Cho as if nothing out of the ordinary had been happening.

"Sounds like there's been some sort of problem."

Hesitantly, tearfully, Cho began telling Penny what happened in Potions. Penny just waited until Cho finished the story and burst into tears again.

"Potions, eh? I should have known. Nobody's told you about Snape, have they?" Cho shook her head. "Well, you know that Flitwick the Charms Master is also head of Ravenclaw House. He was very worried about you, by the way, when you didn't show up for Charms. You should go round and see him. Anyway, Snape isn't just Potions Master; he's also head of Slytherin House. He's a truly evil customer because of it; always favoring Slytherin for one reason or another, and taking points off of the other Houses. He was going to get us one way or another; it just happened to be your day, is all."

"But I . I cost us . twenty points!"

"You think that's something? We have one of the worst Quidditch teams of the century right now, and every time they play it costs us fifty points; the other side always gets the Golden Snitch, you see. But what we lose in Quidditch we make up for in academics."

There was a pounding on the door. "What's going on in there?" an older woman's voice came through the door.

Penny shouted back: "It's all right, Madam Pomfrey! Just give it a couple more minutes!" Penny turned back to Cho as if nothing had happened. "So, you were saying."

Cho sniffed, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Then the others won't hate me?"

"Well, maybe for a day or two. But Snape's the real culprit here, you know. Anyway, this will all blow over, and someone else will do something else to cost us points. I'm sure this will all be forgotten in a week."

Cho smiled weakly. "I'm sorry to be such a bother."

"Think nothing of it. As I said, it'll all be forgotten in no time." Penny stood up, and helped Cho to her feet. "Maybe we'd better see to this lot now," Penny gestured toward the barricade of furniture.

Cho started moving things back by hand; Penny, however, used her wand and sent the furniture back quicker than Cho could have moved it.

"How." was all Cho could ask.

"In Charms. It's one of the first lessons, in fact. Flitwick will show it to you next week, I'm sure."

"Penny." Cho finally seemed to be free of the weight that had fallen on her in Potions. "Thanks for everything."

"Don't worry about it. You've missed Charms; why don't we get some lunch before you go and make it up to Flitwick?"

The two girls walked down to the Common Room. There, a cluster of Fifth- Year and Sixth-Year boys were waiting for them.

"So it was Chang, then, after the first period?" asked one of the older boys. Penny rolled her eyes and nodded. Immediately, the boys started handing coins back and forth.

Cho blushed. "Don't tell me."

"Don't take it personally, Cho. Some of these idiots will bet on anything. They just uphold the tradition on trying to guess which one will 'bottom- out' first."

"Bottom out?"

"As in the bottom melting out of your cauldron. In their case, it means that some First-Year, every year, just loses his-or her-composure and starts panicking."

"And that's how I'll be remembered, isn't it?"

"Not likely," Penny chuckled. "There are a lot of other ways to be remembered."

And before the week was out, Cho Chang would discover one such way.

xxx

to be continued in part 5, where Cho is first introduced to an old Comet 260, and uses it to surprise Madam Hooch